Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is used to identify early signs of problems, allowing prevention of disasters and then the repair of these damages. It is also used to provide guidelines for new building materials, reducing the need for repair over the structure's lifetime. Currently, sensors used for SHM are punctual devices that give only partial information about the stresses affecting the structure. Their localized nature gives incomplete information about the structure health. They fail to locate defects in the early stage, such as cracks or buckling, which require centimeter spatial resolution over large structural coverage. There is a need for a technique that detects faults and assesses the severity of the damage of the whole structure. Such a sensor must perform distributed temperature and strain measurements over tens of meters to kilometers.
Fiber optic distributed strain and temperature sensors measure strain and temperature over very long distances and are an excellent tool for monitoring the health of large structures, such as pipelines, power distribution lines, dams, security systems, defense equipment, bridges and for fire detection. These sensors leverage the huge economies of scale in optical telecommunications to provide high resolution long-range monitoring at a cost per kilometer that cannot be matched with any other technology.
A common fiber optic sensor technology appropriate for localized measurements is known as fiber Bragg grating sensors. However, for structural health monitoring, when the potential damage or leakage locations are unknown, it is difficult to pre-determine the places to put fiber Bragg grating sensors or strain gauges. Fiber Bragg grating sensors work well as a localized sensor when the specific area of interest is known.
The most common type of strain and temperature measurement uses a phenomenon known as stimulated Brillouin scattering. The form of this measurement is illustrated in FIG. 3. The typical sensor configuration requires two lasers that are directed in opposite directions through the same loop of fiber (one laser operating continuously, the other pulsed). When the frequency difference between the two lasers is equal to the “Brillouin frequency” of the fiber, there is a strong interaction between the 2 laser beams inside the optical fibers and the enhanced acoustic waves (phonons) generated in the fiber. This interaction causes a strong amplification to the Brillouin signal which can be detected easily and localized using an Optical Time Domain Refelectometry (OTDR)-type sampling apparatus. To make a strain or temperature measurement along the fiber, it is necessary to map out the Brillouin spectrum by scanning the frequency difference (or “beat” frequency) of the two laser sources and fitting the peak of the Brillouin spectrum to get the temperature and strain information.
The following equation defines the relationship shown in FIG. 3:νBS=νBO+CT(T−T0)+Cε(ε−ε0)
As the above equation shows, the Brillouin frequency at each point in the fiber is linearly related to the temperature and the strain applied to the fiber. Where νBs represents the measured Brillouin frequency and νB0 represents the Brillouin frequency at the reference temperature or strain, CT and Cε are the temperature and strain coefficients.
Brillouin sensors could be used for the detection of corrosion in terms of the strain change on structural surface due to the corrosion of steel induced deformation on the concrete column in large structures. Brillouin fiber optic sensors excel at long distance and large area coverage, such as any application with total lengths in excess of 10 meters. Distributed Brillouin sensors can be used for much broader coverage and can locate fault points not known prior to sensor installation.
Two types of Brillouin fiber optic sensors exist. Brillouin Optical Time Domain Reflectometers (BOTDR) resolve the strain or temperature based Brillouin scattering of a single pulse. Brillouin Optical Time Domain Analysis (BOTDA) uses a more complicated phenomenon known as Stimulated Brillouin Scatter (SBS). For Stokes scattering (including Brillouin scattering and Raman scattering) only a small fraction of light is scattered at optical frequencies different from, and usually lower than, the frequency of the incident photons. Due to the weak Brillouin signal, the measurement range of BOTDR is limited and SNR is generally worse than that found with BOTDA technology.
One advantage of BOTDR technology is that only one end of the fiber needs to be accessible. The BOTDA technique is significantly more powerful, however, as it uses enhanced Brillouin scattering through two counter-propagating beams. Due to the strong signal strength, the strain and temperature measurements are more accurate and the measuring range is usually longer than that of BOTDR technology, except the length is reduced to half due to the double side's access. The BOTDA method requires more optical components and a 2-way optical path so the total system cost is typically higher (the sensor fiber must be looped or mirrored), however, most field units deployed today are BOTDA systems because the additional measurement accuracy more than justifies the moderate increase in system cost. Accordingly, it is preferable to use BOTDA-based sensor systems as such systems offer highly accurate and fast measurement of strain and temperature.
Several examples of systems that use Brillouin sensors can be found in the art. One sample system is discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,910,803, which relates to oil field applications. This patent teaches the use of fiber optics to sense temperature only. Brillouin scattering is employed and photodiodes and frequency determination are used.
Another example of a system that uses a Brillouin sensor is U.S. Pat. No. 6,813,403, in which large structures are monitored using Brillouin spectrum analysis. A Brillouin scattering sensor is used with two frequency tunable lasers at 1320 nm for strain, displacement and temperature determination based on typical measurements.
As another example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,555,807 teaches an apparatus for sensing strain in a hydrocarbon well. The apparatus uses a DFB laser split into two signals. A returned Brillouin signal is mixed with a reference signal and sent to an analyzer, where the Brillouin frequency shift can be detected.
The problem with some of the systems known in the art is that these systems cannot tell the difference between externally applied strain and temperature induced strain. In addition, the main problem in developing a Brillouin scattering based sensor system using DFB lasers is the stabilization and tuning of the frequency difference between the lasers.